“So you thought. You thought when I said it was my duty to report it, and that the honour of the school was involved in it, and all that, that I was talking about that scrape at Beamish’s.”
“Of course you were,” said Wyndham. “What else could you have been talking about? I confessed it to you myself.”
“And you couldn’t see what the honour of the school had to do with your going to Beamish’s, could you?” asked Riddell.
“Well, no. Perhaps it has, but I didn’t see it at the time.”
“Of course not,” said the captain, “and if I had been thinking of Beamish’s I should never have said such a stupid thing.”
“Why, what do you mean?” said Wyndham, puzzled.
“Why, this. In all our talks you never once mentioned Beamish’s. You concluded what I suspected you of was this, and I concluded that the scrape you were confessing was the one I suspected you of.”
“What do you suspect me of, then?” inquired Wyndham, “if it wasn’t that?”
“I’m ashamed to say,” said the captain, “I suspected you of having cut the lines of Parrett’s rudder at the boat-race.”
Wyndham, in the shock of this announcement, broke out into an almost hysterical laugh.
“Suspected me of cutting the rudder-lines!” he gasped.
“Yes,” said Riddell, sorrowfully. “I’m ashamed to say it.”
“Why, however could you?” exclaimed the boy, in strange bewilderment.
Riddell quietly told him the whole story. Of the mysterious letter, of his visit to Tom the boat-boy, of the knife, of the recollection of Wyndham’s movements on the night in question, and then of his supposed admission of his guilt.
Wyndham listened to it all with breathless attention and wonder, and when it was all done sighed as he replied, “Why, Riddell, it’s like a story, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said the captain, “and rather a pitiful story as far as I am concerned.”
“Not a bit,” replied the boy, as sympathetically as if Riddell was the person to be pitied and he was the person who had wronged him. “It was all a misunderstanding. How on earth could you have helped suspecting me? Any one would have done the same.
“But,” added he, after a pause, “what ought I to do about Beamish’s? Of course that was no end of a scrape, and the mischief is, I promised those two cads never to say a word about it. By the way, you saw me with Silk on this bench yesterday afternoon?”
“Yes,” said Riddell; “you didn’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“I should think I wasn’t. I’d been trying to get him to let me off that promise, and he had offered to do it for seven pounds, under condition. I might have closed with him if you hadn’t come past just then. He held me down to rile you, and I got so wild I rounded on him and made him in a frightful rage, and it’s very likely now he may tell Paddy if you don’t.”
“Not he,” said Riddell. “You’re well out of his clutches, old man, and it strikes me the best way you can atone for that affair is by keeping out of it for the future, and having no more to do with fellows like that.”
“What on earth should I have done,” said the boy, “without you to look after me? I’d have gone to the dogs, to a dead certainty.”
“It seems I can look after you rather too much sometimes,” said the captain. “Ah, there’s Silk coming this way. We needn’t stop, here to give him a return match. Come on.”
And the two friends rose and strolled off happily arm-in-arm.
Chapter Thirty One
Welch’s versus Parrett’s Juniors
“Of course,” said Riddell, as he and Wyndham strolled down by the river that afternoon, “now that your mystery is all cleared up we are as far off as ever finding out who really cut the rudder-lines.”
“Yes. My knife is the only clue, and that proves nothing, for I was always leaving it about, or lending it, or losing it. I don’t suppose I kept it one entire week in my pocket all the time I had it. And, for the matter of that, it’s not at all impossible I may have dropped it in the boat-house myself some time. I often used to change my jacket there.”
Riddell had half expected Wyndham would be able to afford some clue as to who had borrowed or taken the knife at that particular time. He was rather relieved to find that he could not.
“Tom the boat-boy,” said he, “distinctly says that the fellow who was getting out of the window dropped the knife as he did so. Of course that may be his fancy. Anyhow, I don’t want the knife any more, so you may as well take it.”
So saying he produced the knife from his pocket, and handed it to his companion.
“I don’t want the beastly thing,” cried Wyndham, taking it and pitching it into the middle of the river. “Goodness knows it’s done mischief enough! But, I say, whoever wrote that note must have known something about it.”
“Of course,” said the captain, “but he evidently intends the thing to be found out without his help.”
“Never mind,” said Wyndham, cheerily, “give yourself a little rest, old man, and come down and see the second-eleven practise. I’ve been too much up a tree to turn up lately, but I mean to do so this evening. I say, won’t it be jolly if my brother can come down to umpire in the match.”
“It will,” said Riddell, and the pair forthwith launched out into a discussion of the virtues of Wyndham senior, in which one was scarcely more enthusiastic than the other.
On their way back to the Big they met Parson and Telson, trotting down to the bathing sheds.
The faces of these two young gentlemen looked considerably perplexed as they saw the captain and his supposed victim walking arm-in-arm. However, with the delightful simplicity of youth they thought it must be all right somehow, and having important news of some sort to relate, they made no scruple about intruding on the interview.
“Oh, I say, Riddell,” began Telson, “we’ve just come from the Parliament. No end of a row. Last time was nothing to it!”
“What happened?” asked the captain.
“Why, you know,” said Parson, “it was Game and Ashley’s affair summoning this meeting. They sent round a private note or something telling the fellows there would be a special meeting, signed by Game, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Ashley, Home Secretary. A lot of the fellows were taken in by it and turned up, and of course they had taken good care not to summon anybody that was sweet on you. So it was a packed meeting. At least they thought so. But Telson and I showed up, and the whole lot of the Skyrockets, and gave them a lively time of it.”
“You see,” said Telson, eagerly taking up the narrative, “they didn’t guess we’d cut up rough, because we’ve been in rows of that sort once or twice before.”
Wyndham broke out laughing at this point.
“Have you, really?” he exclaimed.
“Well,” continued Telson, too full of his story to heed the interruption, “they stuck Game in the chair, and he made a frightfully rambling speech about you and that boat-race business. He said you knew who the chap was, and were sheltering him and all that, and that you were as bad every bit as if you’d done it yourself, and didn’t care a hang about the honour of the school, and a whole lot of bosh of that sort. We sung out ‘Oh, oh,’ and ‘Question,’ once or twice, but, you know, we were saving ourselves up. So Ashley got up and said he was awfully astonished to hear about it — howling cram, of course, for he knew about it as much as any one did — and he considered it a disgrace to the school, and the only thing to do was to kick you out, and he proposed it.”
“Then the shindy began,” said Parson. “We sent young Lawkins off to tell Crossfield what was going on, and directly Ashley sat down old Telson got up and moved an amendment. They tried to cry him down, but they couldn’t do it, could they?”
“Rather not,” said Telson, proudly. “I stuck there like a leech, and the fellows all yelled too, so that nobody could hear any one speak. We kept on singing out ‘Hole in the corner! Hole in the corner!’ for about twenty mi
nutes, and there weren’t enough of them to turn us out. Then they tried to get round us by being civil, but we were up to that dodge. Parson went on after me, and then old Bosher, and then King, and then Wakefield, and when he’d done I started again.”
“You should have seen how jolly wild they got!” cried Parson. “A lot of the fellows laughed, and joined us too. Old Game and Ashley were regularly mad! They came round and bawled in our ears that they gave us a thousand lines each, and we’d be detained all the rest of the term. But we didn’t hear it; and when they tried to get at us we hit out with rulers, and they couldn’t do it. You never saw such a lark!”
“And presently Crossfield turned up,” said Telson. “My eye! you should have seen how yellow and green they looked when he dropped in and walked up to his usual place! We shut up for a bit as soon as he came — and, you know, I fancy they’d have sooner we kept it up. They were bound to say something when the row stopped. So Game tried to rush the thing through, and get the fellows to vote before Crossfield knew what was up. But he wasn’t to be done that way.”
“‘I didn’t quite hear what the motion was?’ says he, as solemn as a judge.
“‘Oh! it’s about the honour of the school. Riddell—’
“‘Excuse me, Mr Deputy-Chairman and ex-monitor,’ says Crossfield, and there was a regular laugh at that hit, because, of course, Game had no more right in the chair, now he’s not a monitor, than I had. ‘If it’s anything to do with the honour of the school, of course it couldn’t be in better hands than yours, who have summoned the meeting on the sly, and taken such care to select a nice little party!’
“They tried to stop him at that.
“‘You can’t stop the business now. We were just going to take the vote when you came in,’ said Game.
“‘Exactly!’ says Crossfield, propping himself up comfortably against the back of the form as if he was going to stay all night; ‘that’s just why I came, and that’s just why Bloomfield, and Porter, and Coates, and Fairbairn, and a few other gentlemen who have a sort of mild interest in the honour of the school — although it’s nothing, of course, to yours — are coming on too. They’ll be here before I’ve done my speech. By the way, one of you kids,’ said he, with a wink our way, ‘might go and fetch Riddell; he’d like to be here too.’
“We shoved young Wakefield out of the door to make believe to go and fetch you. But they’d had quite enough of it, and shut up the meeting all of a sudden.
“‘I adjourn the meeting!’ cried Game, as red as a turkey-cock.
“‘All right! that will suit me just as well,’ says Crossfield, grinning. ‘Is it to any particular day, or shall we get notice as before?’
“Of course they didn’t stop to answer, and so we gave no end of a cheer for old Crossfield, and then came on here.”
And having delivered themselves of this full, true, and particular account of the afternoon’s adventures, these two small heroes continued their trot down to the river to refresh their honest limbs after the day’s labours.
Their version of the proceedings was very little exaggerated, and, as Crossfield and several others who were present each entertained his own particular circle of friends with the same story, the whole affair became a joke against the luckless Game and Ashley.
Even their own house did not spare them, and as for Bloomfield, he evinced his displeasure in a way which surprised the two heroes.
“What’s all this foolery you’ve been up to, you two?” said he, coming into the preparation-room after tea, where most of the senior Parretts were assembled.
It was not flattering certainly to the two in question to have their noble protest for the honour of the school thus designated, and Game answered, rather sheepishly, “We’ve been up to no foolery!”
“You may not call it foolery,” said Bloomfield, who was in anything but a good temper, “but I do! Making the whole house ridiculous! Goodness knows there’s been quite enough done in that way without wanting your help to do more!”
“What’s the use of going on like that?” said Ashley. “You don’t suppose we did it to amuse ourselves, do you?”
“If you didn’t amuse yourselves you amused every one else,” growled Bloomfield. “Everybody’s laughing at us.”
“We felt something ought to be done about Riddell—” began Game.
“Felt! You’d no business to feel, if that’s the best you can show for it,” said Bloomfield. “You’ll never set things right!”
“Look here,” said Game, quickly, losing his temper; “you know well enough it was meant for the best, and you needn’t come and kick up a row like this before everybody! If you don’t care to have Riddell shown up, it is no reason why we shouldn’t!”
“A precious lot you’ve shown him up! If you’d wanted to get every one on his side, you couldn’t have done better. You don’t suppose any one would be frightened out of his skin by anything a couple of asses who’d been kicked out of the monitorship had to say?”
Bloomfield certainly had the habit of expressing himself warmly at times, and on the present occasion he may have done so rather more warmly than the case deserved. But he was put out and angry at the ridiculous performance of the Parrett’s boys, in which he felt the entire house was more or less compromised.
As to Riddell, Bloomfield still kept his own private opinion of him, but the difference between him and his more ardent comrades was that he had the sense to keep what he thought to himself.
At any rate, he gave deep offence now to Game and Ashley, who retired in high dudgeon and greatly crestfallen to proclaim their wrongs to a small and sympathetic knot of admirers.
Perhaps the most serious blow these officious young gentlemen had received — hardly second to their snubbing by the Parretts’ captain — had been the mutiny of their own juniors, on whose cooperation they had calculated to a dead certainty.
To find Parson, Bosher, King, and Co. standing up in defence of Riddell against them was a phenomenon so wonderful, when they came to think of it, that they were inclined to imagine they themselves were the only sane boys left out of a house of lunatics. And this was the only consolation that mixed with the affair at all.
As to these juniors, they had far more to think about. In three days the match with Welch’s would be upon them, and a panic ensued on the discovery.
They had been contemptuously confident of their superior prowess, and it was not until one or two of them had actually been down to inspect the play of the rival team, and Bloomfield had come down to one of their own practices and declared publicly that they were safe to be beaten hollow, that they regarded the coming contest seriously.
Then they went to work in grim earnest. Having broken with Game, on whom they had usually depended for “instruction and reproof,” they boldly claimed the services of Bloomfield, and even pressed the willing Mr Parrett into the service.
Mr Parrett pulled a very long face the first afternoon he came down to look at them. He had been coaching the Welchers for a week or two past, and therefore knew pretty well what their opponents ought to be. And he was bound to admit that the young Parretts were very much below the mark.
They had a few good men. Parson was a fair bat, and King bowled moderately; but the “tail” of the eleven was in a shocking condition. Everything that could be done during the next few days was done. But cricket is not a study which can be “crammed” up, like Virgil or Euclid; and, despite the united efforts of Bloomfield and Mr Parrett, and a few other authorities, the team was pronounced to be a “shady” one at best as it took its place on the field of battle.
Riddell had kept his men steadily at it to the last. With a generosity very few appreciated, he forbore to claim Mr Parrett’s assistance at all during the last few days of practice, but he got Fairbairn and one or two of the schoolhouse seniors instead, and with their help kept up the courage and hopes of the young Welchers, wisely taking care, however, by a little occasional judicious snubbing, to prevent them from becoming t
oo cocky or sure of the result.
It was quite an event to see the Welchers’ flag hoisted once more on the cricket-ground. Indeed, it was such an event that the doctor himself came down to watch the play, while the muster of schoolboys was almost as large as at a senior house match.
Among all the spectators, none were more interested in the event than the seniors, who had taken upon themselves the responsibility of “coaching” their respective teams.
Riddell was quite excited and nervous as he watched his men go out to field, while Bloomfield, though he would have been the last to own it, felt decidedly fidgety for the fate of his young champions.
However, Parretts, who went in first, began better than any one expected. Parson and King went boldly — not to say rashly — to work from the outset, and knocked the bowling about considerably before a lucky ball from Philpot got round the bat of the former and demolished his wicket.
Wakefield followed, and he too managed to put a few runs together; but as soon as his wicket fell a dismal quarter of an hour followed for the Parretts. Boy after boy, in all the finery of spotless flannel and pads and gloves, swaggered up to the wicket, and, after taking “middle” in magnificent style, and giving a lordly glance round the field, as though to select the best point for placing their strokes, lifted their bats miserably at the first ball that came, and had no chance of lifting it at another.
It was a melancholy spectacle, and far more calculated to excite pity than amusement. Bloomfield chafed and growled for some time, and then, unable to stand it any longer, went off in disgust, leaving the young reprobates to their fate.
Scarcely less remarkable than the collapse of Parrett’s was the steadiness of Welch’s in the field. Although they had little to do, they did what there was to do neatly and well, and, unlike many junior elevens, did it quietly. The junior matches at Willoughby had usually been more famous for noise than cricket, but on this occasion the order of things was reversed, and Riddell, as he looked on and heard the compliments from all quarters bestowed on his young heroes, might be excused if he felt rewarded for all the labour and patience of the past month.
The Willoughby Captains Page 34
